A D2R2 a Day…

The best—and the worst—part of living out here is the climbs. A 15-mile quick midday ride involves almost 2000 feet of climbing; going to lunch in town involves 30 miles and around 3200 feet of climbing. Yes, there are substantially flatter ways of going about both routes, but what would be the fun in that?

After putting in almost 200 miles in the previous week, including a 70-mile climb fest over the Shawangunks with Doug (see below), I had to buckle down and get some work done. One of the nice things about self-employment is that I can work when I want, one of the bad things is that I end up working some really odd hours to make the time for longer-distance rides; for example, last week I worked three 16-hour days and an 8-hour day, interspersed with 3 days off for long rides.

This week consisted of five 1-2 hour rides, and less than 100 miles total. It’s January, okay? I did get a few pictures…

This is the Whitfield Cemetery, established in 1812 and in considerable disrepair. I stopped here on my way back from lunch because I’m still trying to learn to use my camera, and I thought it would be a good subject.

Despite the fact that it warmed up considerably last week, many of the back roads remained snow-covered and treacherous.

Sunset over the Catskills, only a few miles from home.

And finally, a few more pictures from this week. They’re all taken in the area north of Route 209 and south of Upper Cherrytown Road.

I’d like to blame my lack of photographic talent on my equipment (it’s just a point-and-shoot, after all), but, in truth, I just don’t know what I’m doing!

Later this week, I’ll write up an easy route out of Beacon, New York, that heads up to New Paltz via the bike path, into Rosendale, and then back on slightly more challenging (although still easy) terrain. It’s a good introduction to the area, and an easy ride even for inexperienced cyclists. Then—since it’s 10 degrees out here–I’ll get down to posting a bunch of more serious routes, I’ve got few dozen more good routes that deserve their own posts.

Hey John, I was sent a link to your blog about your 8 climbs for next summer. It was a great read, the Hudson Valley most defiantly is one of the greatest places for a cyclist to live. I really like your photos, what kind of camera and filters do you use? Do you edit them also?

At some point I’ll post on that, but I just use a regular point-and-shoot camera. The really detailed pictures you see are the product of HDR: I set my camera to automatically shoot one underexposed picture, one at the proper exposure, and one overexposed picture. Then these images are combined in software called Photomatix. I do no further editing. However, for most of my pictures I just pull the camera out of my jersey pocket and take a few snaps. My secret there? Volume. Take enough pictures and three or four are bound to turn out! I’m still learning how to use my camera, so that’s all the advice I have.